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JU homecoming featuring low-country boil for 500

Photos by Will.Dickey@jacksonville.com Low country boil isn't difficult to make, Chef Brian Bowser says. All it takes is fresh ingredients like shrimp, crawfish, potatoes and corn on the cob. It's important not to throw everything in the pot at once. The seafood goes in last, about five minutes before serving.

Brian Bowser, Sodexo food service area executive chef, adds crawfish to a low country boil. It's on the menu for an alumni dinner at Jacksonville University. About 500 people are expected for the Sept. 29 event.

Fresh crawfish and Mayport shrimp are the star ingredients in a low country boil. Other ingredients include sausage, corn, onions and potatoes. Will.Dickey@Jacksonville.com

The star attraction at Jacksonville University’s homecoming this month will be a 55-gallon pot that will be emitting a fragrant pungent aroma. More precisely, it’s what the pot contains that will be tickling the salivary glands of alumni.

There’s just something about a low country boil, coastal Carolina parlance for shrimp, crawfish, smoked sausage, corn on the cob, red potatoes and every seasoning imaginable. Just ask Quinton White, executive director of JU’s Marine Science Research Institute.

He likes it so much that he had it on the menu for a recent student dinner, calling it a convivial friend-raising event.

“You sit, eat and talk,” said White, who’s from Virginia and went to the University of South Carolina.

Besides, as a marine biologist, White said he’s always loved seafood.

Brian Bowser, district executive chef for Sodexo, got such “positive feedback” from White that he’s making it the featured dish for 500 alumni expected at the homecoming dinner at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at the marine institute on JU’s riverbank. Sodexo handles food services for JU.

The one-pot meal, accompanied by creole butter sauce and chipotle-cheddar cornbread, is meant to be a little messy and will be served showered with boil juice on tables covered with newspapers. Another advantage is that it’s relatively simple, Bowser said. And he’s not put off by the numbers, hefty though they are.

“A lot of it is logistics, having all your people, your resources and your product in one area,” he said.

Bowser starts preparations eight to nine days beforehand. The shrimp will arrive fresh from Mayport the day of the dinner, while the crawfish will be shipped from Baton Rouge a day or two earlier. The cooking will take 2½ to 3 hours, with the 55-gallon pot being used twice.

“For any event, the kitchen is the eye of the storm, and it needs to have the calmest atmosphere,” Bowser said, adding that he has a “great support staff” of one sous-chef, two production supervisors and four cooks.

With a low boil, an important element is developing layers of flavor, he said. Bowser’s secret is to use a flavored broth because water alone doesn’t enhance the taste. A mistake that many cooks make is to toss everything in at once, he said, in which case the potatoes are raw and the shrimp overcooked. Start with the sausage to extract the most flavor, and add the seafood during the last five to seven minutes.

“Tough shrimp makes me cry,” Bowser said.

FROGMORE STEW

Richard Gay, an owner of Gay Fish Co. and a National Guardsman, created what was then called Frogmore Stew when he needed to cook a meal for 100 soldiers, according to websites. Guards gave it that monicker after teasing him about the name of the little village on St. Helena Island near Beaufort, S.C., where he grew up.

When the postal service eliminated the name “Frogmore,” the dish was dubbed low-country boil. Its fame spread when it was featured on the cover of Gourmet magazine in the 1980s, a website said. Its origins, however, go back to the cuisine of the Gullah/Geechee people of the sea islands.

Bowser, who went to culinary school at Sullivan University in Louisville, Ky., sometimes cooks at home, but the father of two said his wife is a phenomenal cook and wonderful baker.

He’s been based at JU for four years, but does events for Sodexo across the state. At JU, he may do several hundred events a year, including coffee breaks, boxed lunches and seven-course gourmet dinners. He’s been doing the low country boil for almost 12 years.

He’s a master of the large cuisine. For a dance at the Alumni House after the boil dinner, he’s preparing from 2,500 to 3,000 petite desserts, such as petit fours, tartlets and truffles. He enjoys doing whimsical interpretations of desserts, such as Bananas Foster featuring a caramelized banana sitting on a banana rum creme in an Asian soup spoon.

And if you think a dinner for 500 is a lot, that’s nothing. The largest he’s done was a fall semester opening dinner for 1,500 freshmen and their families.

Sandy Strickland: (904) 359-4128

LOW COUNTRY BOIL

6 pounds shrimp, headed and washed

6 pounds crawfish, rinsed

6 pounds smoked sausage or Cajun andouille, cut in pieces

15 ears of corn, shucked and broken in half

1 pound butter

4 large onions, cut in chunks

4 bell peppers, cut in quarters

6 pods garlic

4 pounds redskin potatoes, scrubbed and left in their jackets

Salt and pepper to taste

COURT BOUILLON:

1½ gallons water

1 pint dry white wine

¼ cup Old Bay seafood seasoning

2 tablespoons smoked paprika

1 tablespoon dried whole thyme

1 tablespoon dried whole basil

½ tablespoon crushed red pepper

4 tablespoons hot sauce

4 bay leaves

In huge pot, cook sausage in court bouillon for about 20 minutes. Add remaining ingredients except shrimp. Cook until potatoes are almost done. Add shrimp and cook until just tender. Drain off water.

Cover table with newspaper. Take pot of “boil” and throw it on the table, as though you were throwing out a bucket of water. Let everyone help themselves, using paper plates.

Serves 15.

Have plenty of iced tea available, and if you like, some slices of Vienna or French bread smeared with garlic butter.